A new study confirms what many site owners have suspected: Google's AI Overviews cut organic clicks by 38%. Search Engine Journal reported the finding, which puts a hard number on the traffic loss publishers have blamed on AI-generated answers since the feature rolled out.

That 38% figure matters because the debate so far has run on anecdotes. Publishers reported traffic drops after AI Overviews appeared on their queries, but tool data and Google's own statements often pointed in different directions. Now there's a quantified result to anchor the discussion.

What did the study actually measure?

The study tracked organic click behavior on search results where AI Overviews appear. Those are the AI-generated summaries Google shows above the traditional blue links for many informational queries. When Google answers the question directly in the summary, fewer people scroll down and click.

A 38% click reduction means that for every 100 clicks a page might have earned on an AI Overview query, roughly 62 now actually arrive. For a site drawing a million organic visits a month, that pattern translates to hundreds of thousands of lost sessions spread across the year.

The takeaway: AI Overviews don't just sit above your listing — they absorb the click your listing used to get.

Confirmed finding vs. earlier speculation

It's worth separating what's now measured from what was previously guessed.

• Now quantified: a 38% reduction in organic clicks tied to AI Overviews, per the study Search Engine Journal covered.
• Earlier speculation: publisher anecdotes of double-digit traffic declines, third-party tool fluctuations, and Google's repeated framing that AI Overviews "send quality traffic" and expand the range of query types a result can serve.

Google has consistently downplayed the traffic risk. The study's number now sits on the other side of that argument, and it's a data-backed counterweight rather than a complaint thread.

The takeaway: this is the first widely reported quantified confirmation, not another round of tool-signal guessing.

Who feels this the most?

Informational publishers are the clearest losers here. AI Overviews tend to trigger on definitional, how-to and research-style queries — exactly the traffic that sustains content sites, affiliate operations and reference publishers. Commercial pages and brand queries see less exposure to the format, so the pain is unevenly distributed.

Site types by likely exposure:

• Content and editorial sites: high exposure, heavy reliance on informational queries.
• Affiliate and review sites: high exposure where AI summaries answer product questions directly.
• E-commerce and local businesses: lower direct exposure today, but the format keeps expanding.

The takeaway: the more your traffic depends on questions Google can summarize, the more this number is your number.

What should publishers watch next?

Watch whether the 38% figure holds as Google widens AI Overviews to more query types, and watch whether compensated click adjustments — placements, schema-driven formats, or new SERP modules — offset any of the loss. Expect follow-up studies with larger samples to test whether the click decline deepens or stabilizes as users grow accustomed to AI answers at the top of the page.

By Olivia Hart